Fixing It v. Feeling It

It's only natural; when pipes freeze or the car won't start, those need attending to.

But so often we can turn that fixing towards ourselves. I certainly do.

Fix my habits, my mindsets, my body. It's almost like telling myself that I'm a barrel of problems to be solved. And that's not the most loving thing to communicate.

So, what I've been experimenting with is when I'm inclined towards fixing something in myself, I try, instead, to feel it.

Fixing often leaps over the feeling and into the solution. But it's hard to find a worthy solution if I don't know what I'm feeling.

I'm trying to eat more slowly. The fixer in me says, Pace yourself. Take one bite a minute. Chew 13 times. It seems sound. And it hasn't worked.

But the feeler in me says, Okay, let's be still for a sec. What do you feel in your body? Big clench in the belly and jaw. Squeezing across the upper back. And what do you feel in yourself? Fear - that I'll be bored when I'm done eating, that I won't have anything to enjoy after.

Huh, so this is about fear. And this is how my body holds my fear.

When I feel into something rather than fix it, I get insight into what's actually happening. And insight is always there for us. If we can risk making space for it.

So, often, with that insight, I can find a kinder way to be with the feeling - fear, discomfort, loneliness - rather than slap a fix onto it that seems sound, but doesn't work.

The other part, though, is that each time I feel rather than fix, I'm communicating to myself that I'm not a problem to be solved, but a human to be understood.

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